I nearly was late for the Mercyhurst men's lacrosse team's biggest game of the season.

It was less than an hour before the NCAA Division II Tournament championship game, and I was lost in a crowd.

Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles and the Lakers' national title hopes, towered above me. Yet it may as well not have been standing there at all.

At that moment, the atmosphere surrounding championship weekend was overwhelming. The LaXperience was an experience.

NCAA lacrosse's annual fan fest offers a little bit of everything for anyone who appreciates an interactive event. It's mainly for kids -- activities, games, clinics with professional players. But it's also for kids at heart that love lacrosse.

It was difficult to pull away from the top-end equipment on display, hands-on shooting competitions and the overall buzz surrounding the weekend. The game's 1 p.m. start time last Sunday arrived way too quickly.

The event brought the best teams in Divisions I, II and III to Philadelphia. It joins women's rowing as the only two NCAA championship tournaments that feature teams from all three levels in one place.

All five games produced some of the most exciting lacrosse I've seen in recent years -- Cornell senior Rob Pannell's NCAA career scoring record, Syracuse's last-second, come-from-behind win against Denver, Mercyhurst's fourth-quarter rally against Le Moyne that fell one goal short, the back-and-forth D-III final between Rochester Instiute of Technology and Stevenson, Duke's dominant second half against Syracuse to win the D-I championship.

Still, the festivities that filled the rest of the weekend made this event unique.

Lacrosse is arguably the fastest growing sport in the United States. Just look around Erie, a town where lacrosse has grown steadily in the past decade.

When I arrived in Erie nine years ago, there were few signs of lacrosse being played.

Now, kids from kindergarten through high school are playing it and watching Chris Ryan's perennial national championship contender at Mercyhurst.

At fan fest, there were kids everywhere with sticks in hand.

I have two kids at home that wished they could have been there, too.

They're lacrosse players, too -- one at the high school level, the other at the middle school level.

They watched the D-I games on television, but it's still not the same as being there.

So I made my oldest son, Anthony, a deal.

If he performs well in school as a senior next year, his graduation gift will be a trip to Baltimore next May for lacrosse's championship weekend.

After seeing all the pictures I took this past weekend, he didn't hesitate to accept it. It's an opportunity he doesn't want to miss.